In a landmark antitrust trial in the US, lawyers argued that Meta took advantage of its market position to buy out rivals rather than compete with them.
Meta boss and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg has faced trial in a case in which his social network is accused of abusing its market power to acquire Instagram and WhatsApp before they became competitors.
Lawyers for the FTC argue that Facebook, which renamed itself Meta, destroyed what it considered to be competitive threats.
Zuckerberg was shown an internal Facebook email from 2011 warning that Instagram was a hit with smartphones and could easily copy what his social network offered.
Another 2012 email related to the Instagram acquisition suggested simply keeping the app without any improvements while Facebook develops its own products, and thus avoiding upsetting users by shutting it down.
Zuckerberg downplayed these exchanged messages as early conversations before plans for Instagram came to fruition.
The start of the trial in a federal court in Washington has scalded Zuckerberg's hopes that President Donald Trump's return to the White House will prompt the government to drop its enforcement of antitrust laws against big tech companies.
The lawsuit against Meta could force the Facebook owner to divest from Instagram and WhatsApp, which have become global apps since their purchase.
"They decided that the competition was too great, it would be easier to buy their rivals than to compete with them," said FTC lawyer Daniel Mattison in his opening remarks at the trial.
Meta's attorney Mark Hansen countered that "acquisitions for the purpose of improving and growing the acquired company" are not illegal in the U.S., and that's exactly what Facebook has done. | BGNES
